Lowering the bar

I like to think of myself as a sophisticated individual.....On a scale of 1 to 10, I would probably rate self 1.1 on looks, 3.5 on general awareness, 2 on achievement, 3 on the ability to speak in english and an over the top 4 on holding strong opinions on things that matter.....These scores would probably place me somewhere in the top 0.1 percentile of the country's elite thinkers.

Like everybody else I too dream of a state that is rid of corruption, of poverty, of beggary and crime, of terrorism and fear and above all of bad roads...I also of course dream of obtaining outrageously large salary hikes, a penthouse apartment in
Bandra and batting at number 3 for India...The only problem with these dreams is that of their attention span...

From a purely management standpoint, I believe that all aspirations of the intellectual elite in India can be categorised into the standard compartments of Strategic, Tactical and Operational. The stratgic aims are often utopian dreams of being a key player in nation building, helping India become a superpower, striking corruption at the root, a hero for the masses and similar blahs...At a tactical level the aspirations are limited to becoming CEO of the company one works for, hoping to fire the boss someday, getting to follow one's passion (rockstar, serial killer, painter, choreographer, day trader etc), becoming an entrepreneur.....
The third level which is the operational is the most important as most of us spend entire lives caught in its fangs. Here the concerns are very real like the next onsite opportunity, the holy trinity of the increment, the bonus and the variable
component, EMIs, tax and ironically its benefits, Sachin Tendulkar's form, Air fares, honeymoon destinations, and above all the frustration at not being able to move onto the tactical and strategic dimensions.

Such, I guess, is life. One means well but there is nothing one can do.

Digressing here a bit, I have often wondered about people who actually burn effigies of other people. And this phenomenon seems to be on the rise lately. People have been doing it to the Pope, delhi traders burnt an effigy of "sealing (sic)" apparently, George Bush is a firm favorite in the middle east, Baba Ramdev went through it recently. My point is..who does something like that? ...I mean how does the whole thing happen.

Imagine this guy who sort of wakes up in the morning and starts doing his daily stuff. He takes a shower, sips into his tea, turns on the telly and sees something he does not like.

"Bugger this, for a frickin' lark", he says to himself, "this calls for an effigy does'nt it".

He calls a couple of his friends and says "Dude, wassup. Did you catch that thing on television? Disgusting man! lets do an effigy before we get to work. I have some wood stilts from last weeks carpentary job, you get some cloth and we'll buy some kerosene on the way" And dont forget to phone in a couple of TV channels man. And get your camera willya, mine is not fully charged"

I mean how jobless can one get!! Its quite funny though watching these lads on television having a ball in the middle of the road. Shouting, screaming, swearing and burning in front of the camera and the police and getting away with it..Every
schoolboy's fantasy come true...Half the teenagers in the country today would love to do something like this frankly...And for all they care it could be an effigy of the planet Pluto for pretending...

Ditto for stone throwing...I would'nt have minded throwing a few stones in my time frankly...'cause some of "them" buggers really deserved it!